Srinagar: For perhaps the first time, the Indian Army has admitted receiving help from across the Line of Control (LoC) in tracking down infiltrators in Jammu & Kashmir.

The army said it had received intelligence from across the LoC, which proved crucial in tracking down the infiltrators in the Drangyari and Hafradu forests in Kupwara district. Seventeen terrorists and six soldiers were killed in a six-day encounter, which is still continuing.

"The terrorists were intercepted because of absolute, accurate, and reliable human intelligence from our side as well as the other side of the LoC," said brigadier Gurmeet Singh, brigadier general staff (BGS), 15 Corps.

Singh, however, refused to give details of the intelligence network that led to the interception and elimination of the terrorists. "All I can tell you is that we have a very deliberate, well laid-out intelligence network to have early warnings of infiltration attempts," he said.

"The terrorists were essentially foreign militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba," Singh said.

He said the weapons recovered from the site indicate that the militants were well organised. "The maps and global positioning systems recovered from the dead militants were indicative that state and security forces' assistance from across the border was there, as such material is not usually in the civil domain."